Beggar's Sky - (Rich Man's Sky) by Wil McCarthy (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Trillionaire Igbal Renz has constructed a starship capable of making the twenty-year journey to Alpha Centauri. So why is he stopping at barely one-tenth that distance, with a cargo of a hundred frozen scientists and diplomats? Rumors abound that Renz Ventures, Inc., has made contact with . . . something. And yet, as deadly stealth ships prowl the space lanes and as the corporate space race threatens to devolve into outright warfare, the Four Horsemen of space industry are discovering firsthand that even in a limitless and lawless frontier, no one can ever be truly self-sufficient"--

Book Synopsis

A wildly original alien contact novel, set against a vivid backdrop of near-Earth corporate intrigue.

Trillionaire Igbal Renz has constructed a starship capable of making the twenty-year journey to Alpha Centauri. So why is he stopping at barely one-tenth that distance, with a cargo of a hundred frozen scientists and diplomats? Rumors abound that Renz Ventures, Inc., has made contact with . . . something. And yet, as deadly stealth ships prowl the space lanes and as the corporate space race threatens to devolve into outright warfare, the Four Horsemen of space industry are discovering firsthand that even in a limitless and lawless frontier, no one can ever be truly self-sufficient.

About the Author

Engineer/novelist/journalist/entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick awards. His short fiction has graced the pages of Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable Bloom, Amazon.com "Best of Y2K" The Collapsium (a national bestseller), To Crush the Moon, and Antediluvian. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines.

Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics and founder/president/CTO of Raven Brick LLC, McCarthy hold patents of his own in seven countries, including twenty-nine issued U.S. patents in the field of nanostructured optical materials.